Much attention is being paid to lithium ion secondary batteries serving as a power supply for use in portable equipment or serving as a power supply for use in electric automobiles, hybrid electric automobiles and other like vehicles. Incidentally, in a lithium ion secondary battery, the performing of charging (in particular, the performing of high-rate charging), for example, under a low temperature environment may result in the deposition or precipitation of lithium on the surface of a negative electrode. Most of the lithium deposited on the negative electrode surface will make no contribution to the battery charging and discharging reaction, so that if such charging is repeatedly carried out, the problem arises that the battery capacity will decrease. In recent years, various methods have been proposed with a view to providing solutions to the aforesaid problem (see, for example, Patent Document 1).    Patent Document 1: JP 2001-52760A
Patent Document 1 proposes a charging method in which there is set a charging voltage in response to the battery temperature at the time of starting charging, and at the charging voltage thus set, constant voltage charging is carried out. More specifically, the lower the battery temperature at the time of starting charging, the lower the charging voltage is set. This, according to the description, makes it possible to prevent, at the time of charging under a low temperature environment, the negative electrode from decreasing in electric potential due to the decrease in battery temperature and, as a result, the electric potential of the negative electrode is impeded from decreasing to the lithium deposition electric potential, thereby preventing the deposition of lithium.